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As Canadians look forward to enjoying warmer weather on the patio, more adults may be reaching for a glass of wine instead of beer, a report released Monday suggests.

While beer remains king in Canada, a Statistics Canada report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, says wine sales are on the rise.

Beer and liquor store agencies sold $20.3 billion worth of alcohol during the fiscal year — up two per cent from the previous year, according to the Statistics Canada data.

Beer sales made up $9.1 billion of that total.

However, beer's share of the alcohol market has declined over the past decade. It's fallen from 52 per cent of sales (by dollar value) in 2000, to 45 per cent in the most recent data.

In comparison, wineries, liquor stores and their agencies sold $6.1 billion worth of wines during the fiscal year, up five per cent from the previous year.

From 2000 to 2011, the dollar sales of red wine grew by an astonishing 181 per cent, while dollar sales for white wine increased by 66 per cent.

Market share for wine reached 30 per cent in 2011, up from 23 per cent a decade earlier.

Ed Madronich, owner of Flat Rock Cellars at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., said the increasing interest in wine is because of a growing "wine culture" in the country.

"The big change in Canada, Ontario and B.C., is we have wine regions now," he said. "We never had quality wine regions. Now we have the Niagara peninsula producing great wines from our own backyard."

More consumers, he said, are enticed to buy wine after visiting a winery.

Christopher Waters, editor of Vines Magazine, said wine's increasing popularity is also because of popular cooking shows and networks that feature wine as part of a culinary experience.

"There's a new kind of hyperawareness of culinary and gastronomy, which feeds into an interest in wine," he said.

The report suggested that the volume of wine sales increased three per cent to 470 million litres in 2011 from 2010, with imported wine sales growth (4.8 per cent) surpassing domestic wine sales growth (0.5 per cent).

However, Waters explained there's simply more production from the superpowers of wine making — countries such as France and Spain — giving it the advantage over domestically produced wines and Canada's relatively young wine industry. Imported wines also have lower prices.

Yet on the whole, he said, Canadian wines are holding their own and winning awards on the global stage.

Meanwhile, Andre Fortin, spokesman for the Brewers Association of Canada, said although the association is "quite happy" that beer is still Canada's alcoholic beverage of choice, it is "worrisome to some degree" that the market for beer has declined compared to wine.

The volume of imported beer sold was down 2.4 per cent to 321 million litres compared to the previous year.

Yet, looking at the long term, imported beer represented 14 per cent of Canada's beer market, double its share of seven per cent a decade ago.

He noted the brewing industry has been changing in recent years.

In addition to new products and craft beers, beer is undergoing an "image" shift, thanks to food shows featuring chefs cooking with beer.

Beer-food pairings and beer festivals are also becoming more popular, he added.

"It's repackaging (beer) in a different way, getting Canadians to think of beer not just on a sunny day to have one for the barbecue. It's getting people to talk about different flavours," Fortin said.

According to the study, alcohol's overall growth in dollar value was due to several factors, including an increase in sales of imported wine and spirits and a 0.4 per cent increase in the price of spirits, wines and beer during the fiscal year ending March 2011.

According to the study, liquor stores and agencies sold $5.1 billion worth of spirits in the same fiscal year, up 2.9 per cent from the previous year. It was attributed to increase in sales of vodka (five per cent), rum (4.1 per cent) and whisky (2.7 per cent).

The report also noted that while domestic spirits continued to dominate the Canadian market, their lead has been declining: the volume of imported spirits increased to 34 per cent in 2011 from 26 per cent in 2000.

The net income of provincial and territorial liquor authorities, along with other alcohol-related revenue such as permits and liquor licenses, increased 5.6 per cent to $5.9 billion in 2011 compared to the previous year.

With the exception of Alberta, all of the provinces and territories experienced growth in sales. Alberta reported a 4.5 per cent decline in net alcohol sales income.

Net income of provincial and territorial liquor authorities and revenue from the sales of alcoholic beverages at March 31, 2011

Source: Statistics Canada

2010 2011 to 2011

Thousands of dollars % change

Canada 5,558,867 5,872,693 5.6

Nunavut 1,083 1,683 55.4

Yukon 10,939 12,652 15.7

Ontario 1,901,072 2,145,475 12.9

Manitoba 235,278 252,009 7.1

Quebec 1,034,810 1,086,806 5.0

Saskatchewan 205,293 214,989 4.7

Northwest Territories 23,935 24,957 4.3

Prince Edward Island 30,976 31,639 2.1

Nova Scotia 220,951 224,868 1.8

British Columbia 887,128 899,532 1.4

New Brunswick 159,482 161,461 1.2

Newfoundland and Labrador 132,115 133,101 0.7

Alberta 715,805 683,521 -4.5

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